ACADA

Thursday, 21 April 2016

Inside The World’s Most Luxurious Airplane (PHOTOS)

The
A380 is the most comfortable and spacious aircraft ever to grace the skies.

The
Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner manufactured
by Airbus. It is the world's largest passenger airliner, and the airports at
which it operates have upgraded facilities to accommodate it. It was initially
named Airbus A3XX and designed to challenge Boeing's monopoly in the
large-aircraft market. The A380 made its first flight on 27 April 2005 and
entered commercial service in October 2007 with Singapore Airlines.

The
A380's upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage, with a width
equivalent to a wide-body aircraft. This gives the A380-800's cabin 550 square
metres (5,920 sq ft) of usable floor space, 40% more than the next largest
airliner, the Boeing 747-8, and provides seating for 525 people in a typical
three-class configuration or up to 853 people in an all-economy class
configuration. The A380-800 has a design range of 8,500 nautical miles (15,700
km), sufficient to fly nonstop from Dallas, USA to Sydney, Australia, and a
cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 km/h, 560 mph or 490 kn at cruising
altitude).

As
of March 2016, Airbus had received 319 firm orders and delivered 184 aircraft;
Emirates is the biggest A380 customer with 140 on order and 75 delivered.

The
cabin has features to reduce traveller fatigue such as a quieter interior and
higher pressurisation than previous generation of aircraft; the A380 is
pressurised to the equivalent altitude of 1,520 m (5,000 ft) up to 12,000 m
(39,000 ft). It has 50% less cabin noise, 50% more cabin area and volume,
larger windows, bigger overhead bins, and 60 cm (2.0 ft) extra headroom versus the
747-400. Seating options range from 3-room 12 m2 (130 sq ft)
"residence" in first class to 11-across in economy. On other
aircraft, economy seats range from 41.5 cm (16.3 in) to 52.3 cm (20.6 in) in
width, A380 economy seats are up to 48 cm (19 in) wide in a 10-abreast configuration;
compared with the 10-abreast configuration on the 747-400 which typically has
seats 44.5 cm (17.5 in) wide. The A380's upper and lower decks are connected by
two stairways, fore and aft, wide enough to accommodate two passengers
side-by-side; this cabin arrangement allows multiple seat configurations. The
maximum certified carrying capacity is 853 passengers in an all-economy-class
layout, Airbus lists the "typical" three-class layout as
accommodating 525 passengers, with 10 first, 76 business, and 439 economy class
seats. Airline configurations range from Korean Air's 407 passengers to
Emirates' two-class 615 seats for Copenhagen, and average around 480–490 seats.
The Air Austral's proposed 840 passenger layout has not come to fruition. The
A380's interior illumination system uses bulbless LEDs in the cabin, cockpit,
and cargo decks. The LEDs in the cabin can be altered to create an ambience
simulating daylight, night, or intermediate levels. On the outside of the
aircraft, HID lighting is used for brighter illumination.

Airbus's
publicity has stressed the comfort and space of the A380 cabin, and advertised
onboard relaxation areas such as bars, beauty salons, duty-free shops, and
restaurants. Proposed amenities resembled those installed on earlier airliners,
particularly 1970s wide-body jets, which largely gave way to regular seats for
more passenger capacity. Airbus has acknowledged that some cabin proposals were
unlikely to be installed, and that it was ultimately the airlines' decision how
to configure the interior. Industry analysts suggested that implementing
customisation has slowed the production speeds, and raised costs.[189] Due to
delivery delays, Singapore Airlines and Air France debuted their seat designs
on different aircraft prior to the A380.

Initial
operators typically configured their A380s for three-class service, while
adding extra features for passengers in premium cabins. Launch customer
Singapore Airlines introduced partly enclosed first class suites on its A380s
in 2007, each featuring a leather seat with a separate bed; center suites could
be joined to create a double bed. A year later, Qantas debuted a new first
class seat-bed and a sofa lounge at the front of the upper deck on its A380s,
and in 2009 Air France unveiled an upper deck electronic art gallery. In late
2008, Emirates introduced "shower spas" in first class on its A380s
allowing each first class passenger five minutes of hot water, drawing on 2.5
tonnes of water although only 60% of it was used. Emirates, Etihad and Qatar
Airways also have a bar lounge and seating area on the upper deck, while Etihad
has enclosed areas for two people each. In addition to lounge areas, some A380
operators have installed amenities consistent with other aircraft in their
respective fleets, including self-serve snack bars, premium economy sections, and
redesigned business class seating. The Hamberg Aircraft Interiors Expo in April
2015 saw the presentation of an 11-seat row economy cabin for the A380. Airbus
is reacting to a changing economy; the recession which began in 2008 saw a drop
in market percentage of first class and business seats to six percent and an
increase in budget economy travelers. Among other causes is the reluctance of
employers to pay for executives to travel in First or Business Class. Airbus'
chief of cabin marketing, Ingo Wuggestzer, told Aviation Week and Space
Technology that the standard three class cabin no longer reflected market
conditions. The 11 seat row on the A380 is accompanied by similar options on
other widebodies: nine across on the Airbus A330 and ten across on the A350.